Remarks by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the 2026 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore (As Delivered)

View Online Secretary of War Speech Remarks by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the 2026 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore (As Delivered) May 30, 2026 Good morning. It is great to be back in Singapore, and at the Shangri-La Dialogue to speak about the future of this vital Pacific region. It's not a future based on wishful thinking or utopian idealism, but a future that will be defined by our collective efforts to safeguard and secure our most vital national interests. Under the leadership of President Trump, who has over the past year shown repeatedly what it means to defend American national interests, from Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela to Midnight Hammer to cartel drug boats to Epic Fury. We have restored a proactive and realistic approach to our own national defense, reestablishing deterrence. Now, when I was in the United States Army as a young lieutenant, the motto of my first rifle platoon was those who long for peace must prepare for war. It's a simple truth that makes as much sense tactically as it does strategically, but today I want to lay out what this return to realism means for the most consequential region in the world, the Pacific, and as the 2026 US National Defense Strategy makes clear, we are charting a new course for our alliances and partnerships, one that is grounded in the realities of power and interests. It is a course that will leave America stronger, our allies and partners more capable, and the Pacific region more stable and secure. The foundation of this new approach is moving away from a model of dependency and toward one of true partnership, embracing a perspective that our partners in Asia have understood for decades. Now, perhaps because of distance, or perhaps because of the hard-learned lessons of history, the default Asian lens on America has been clearer and far more pragmatic than in other regions. Our partners in Asia have long understood that the bedrock of a durable partnership is not based on idealistic values, but on the concrete alignment of national interests. There is undeniable strength in this clarity, and it's what makes our Pacific allies and partners such reliable counterweights in the face of regional threats. When our interests align, we act together with focused resolve. When our interests diverge, we adjust pragmatically without the drama or the moralizing. I think Western Europe might take note. This is a mindset we fully embrace, the era of the United States subsidizing the defense of wealthy nations is over. We need partners, not protectorates. We seek alliances built on shared responsibility, not dependency. This is the maturation of our alliances in a new era. It's a vision that puts our alliances on a sustainable footing, ensuring they are fit for the challenges of this century, not the last. This shift is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of strategic prudence. The National Defense Strategy makes clear that the old toothless, utopian, and globalist course of foreign policy was headed for a disaster that all changes under President Trump. Our approach is one of flexible practical realism that looks at the world with a clear-eyed perspective that is essential for serving vital interests and nowhere is this clarity more important than the Pacific. This region has profound implications for US security and prosperity. It's the world's largest and most dynamic market area. It's why our national defense strategy directs the Department of War to set the military conditions required to achieve a lasting and favorable balance of power in the Pacific region. When we look across the region today, there is rightful alarm regarding China's historic military buildup and the expansion of its military activities in the region and beyond. We share a clear-eyed assessment of that security environment and a mutual understanding that a Pacific dominated by any hegemon would unravel the regional balance of power and undermine the equilibrium we all seek to preserve. The Department of War is working with the utmost focus to prevent any such unraveling. We do not approach this challenge with needless confrontation, but with a posture of measured and deliberate strength. Our focus is strong, quiet, and clear—strong, quiet, clear. Clear about our intentions, our priorities, and our ability to deliver on the administration's goals. This is a model our Asian partners vastly prefer and have long followed. Our allies across Asia do not seek constant escalation, rhetorical theatrics, or a region defined by public confrontation. What they want and what the United States delivers is strength that is disciplined, resolve that is steady, and leadership that is confident enough to speak and walk softly while carrying a big stick. What we seek and what the President has constantly articulated is a genuinely stable equilibrium that works for Americans as well as our ally, a favorable but durable balance of power in which no state, including China, can impose its hegemony and hold the security or prosperity of our nation and our allies in question. The United States seeks to preserve the conditions that have long underwritten peace and prosperity in this region. We are the power working to sustain equilibrium, not too disruptive, plain and simple. We defend the status quo that has enabled extraordinary growth and opportunity across the region. Our interests in the Pacific are significant, but they are also scoped and reasonable, defined by a favorable balance of power in which sovereignty is respected, commerce flows freely, and nations retain the freedom to make their own choices. This is the balance America upholds and will not allow others to overturn. Under President Trump's leadership, relations between the United States and China are better than they've been in many years. President Trump and this administration seek a stable peace, fair trade, and respectful relations with China. It's not a coincidence that this has happened. Strong, quiet, but clear is the right recipe for stability. Just two weeks ago, President Trump and President Xi engaged in direct discussions in Beijing that reinforced this very foundation. I bore witness to their hours of candid conversations. It was truly historic. They agreed that the United States and China should build a constructive relationship of strategic stability based on fairness and reciprocity, reaffirming that while our nations will vigorously protect our respective interests, we can secure practical, mutually beneficial agreements where our interests align. Now, all of that said, my job at the United States Department of War is to provide the military strength to support President Trump's visionary and realistic diplomacy. It's our essential responsibility at the Department to ensure that the President is always negotiating from a position of unquestionable strength in order to sustain peace here in the Pacific and around the globe. To ensure our military might preserve stability, we will pair it with the clarity of intent, which is why we are meeting more frequently with our Chinese counterparts. By maintaining open lines of military-to-military communication, we can coordinate, deconflict, and reduce the risk of miscalculation. This dialogue is not a sign of capitulating in either direction, but a practical guardrail ensuring the relationship our leaders seek at the top is preserved at every level. And while a decent peace is our goal, make no mistake, America is a Pacific nation, and we insist that China respect our longstanding position in the region, and not just insist but maintain the manifest military strength to underwrite it. Now, to get that job done, we are changing the playbook. The era of performative outrage is over where Washington issues loud diplomatic protests that signal virtue but do not project capabilities. Going forward, we will be intentional about how and when we communicate, and we will lead first and foremost with actions. As I said, strong but quiet, big stick, speak softly. We will prioritize lethal capabilities, strategic discipline, and businesslike cooperation over empty rhetoric and peacocking. Any potential opponent will be forced to judge us by our hard power, collective readiness, and steadfast resolve. As the National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy direct, our approach in the Pacific centers on deterrence by denial along the First Island Chain. Now we are reestablishing the Monroe Doctrine, the Donroe Doctrine, as I like to call it, in the Western Hemisphere, aggressively defending our homeland and our hemisphere. We will protect our people, but if you look at our department's planning guidance and our budget, we're building a team capable of projecting power, a country capable of projecting power anywhere in the world, most especially here. We will build and sustain a strong denial defense in the Western Pacific that ensures aggression is infeasible, escalation unattractive, and war deemed irrational. Our military posture will be resilient, distributed and optimized to deny quick, decisive gains through military force. This is the logic of strategy and it's the essence of peace through strength and the foundation of a durable peace in the Pacific that benefits all of us. We all benefit from such a policy, because our quiet but clear strength will lead to stability and peace. But this is not a burden America can or should carry alone. A favorable balance of power requires capable allies with real military strength, real industrial capacity, and real political resolve. For too long, the security of this region has rested disproportionately on American military power. While many of our allies and partners allowed their own defense capabilities to atrophy, that's a bad deal for the American taxpayer and it is an unsustainable crutch for our allies and partners. Instead, we are all best off when, based on our comparative advantages, we all contribute to the shared goal of peace and stability. This is not a my way or the highway approach. We are ready to work with all of you where you are, based on your own situation, your own geography, and your own cultural, political, and economic realities to ensure that a Pacific free of any dominant hegemon is secured, and that's why a core line of effort in our national defense strategy is to increase burden sharing with U.S. allies and partners, and simultaneously empower them to contribute to our collective defense. This is no longer an afterthought. It's an essential ingredient of our strategy. President Trump has been crystal clear about this from day one in his first administration, and now in his second. Alliances only work when they are true partnerships. It is a two-way street. You don't have a strong alliance unless everyone has skin in the game. No freeloading. History is not over. Alliances are not judged by the number of flags, but by the number of formations. We don't need more conferences. We need more combat power. I'm sorry to say this here: less Shangri-La, more ships, more subs. For too long polite pleas from our European allies to spend more on their own defense fell on deaf ears. They are finally playing catch up, and we let ourselves get distracted by empty globalist rhetoric about the rules-based international order, while European capitals threw open their borders and hollowed out their militaries. You can have all the rules you want, and rules are great, but if you can't back them up with hard power, the rules are not worth the paper they are written on. Europe and NATO have some big decisions to make, and more on that soon. These same principles apply in the Pacific, albeit, of course, in different circumstances. In this region, I'm optimistic that our allies, driven by our shared national interests and the unprecedented threat environment, will step up and step up for real. In fact, we're already seeing progress. If you want to see what burden sharing looks like, consider the Republic of Korea. South Korea has invested consistently in its own defense, not because, because it does not have the luxury of treating war like an academic exercise. They live on the front lines, and so they build real combat power. President Lee's decision to increase defense spending to the new global standard of 3.5% and to assume greater responsibility for its conventional defense reflects simply a clear-eyed understanding of the threat environment. It won't be easy, but it's necessary for the security and prosperity of his country. This was a hard-nosed decision, because they see the world as it actually is. We applaud the pragmatism and leadership demonstrated by Seoul. The region will be far more stable and more secure when other allies and partners follow that path. We see this same realist mindset from the Philippines. Manila is shifting its focus to external defense and enhancing interoperability with US forces, and it's not just talk. Earlier this month, we concluded the largest ever Balikatan, which featured joint training and exercises involving the most advanced US capabilities. The Philippines is also investing more to modernize its military and its coast guard, with President Marcos signing a budget this year that includes a 12% increase in defense spending. This spending increase will fund the Philippines multiyear effort to develop a modern, technologically advanced, and interoperable force that can plug in and fight alongside American war fighters. We're seeing a similar and critical shift in Tokyo. Japan is taking concrete steps to accelerate its defense transformation. Together, we are enhancing our force posture and investing in the right capabilities. We're not at the finish line yet, and there's still some heavy lifting ahead, but the momentum is headed in the right direction. We have high expectations of our Japanese allies, and together we can and must each pull our weight to strengthen the US-Japan alliance. Strong, quiet, clear. Australia is stepping up. Together, we are expanding the rotational presence of US forces and collaborating to ensure our defense industrial base build and sustain weapons required for a high-end fight. We appreciate Australia's investment in real combat power and the commitment to integrate more deeply with the US joint force. Across Southeast Asia, we're seeing our partners step up also. Our hosts, Singapore, consistently punch above its weight by investing heavily in its military and serving as a vital hub for US logistics activities and rotational deployments, strengthening our shared regional posture. Indonesia too is making important strides as it modernizes its armed forces and expands the scale of military exercises with us and our partners, strengthening interoperability and reinforcing regional stability. I also want to recognize Malaysia's leadership in rapidly deploying ASEAN observer teams to monitor the Thai-Cambodia border. That is burden sharing in action. Nations in the region stepping forward to preserve peace, reduce tensions, and support diplomacy with credible capability. I commend Malaysia and ASEAN for their efforts in support of President Trump's historic peace deal. On the mainland, Thailand continues to deepen military cooperation with the United States to enhance interoperability and develop necessary readiness. Thailand, a longtime US partner investing even more. We're also seeing the same seriousness of purpose from Vietnam. Hanoi is diligently modernizing its maritime capabilities while expanding pragmatic defense cooperation with the United States. Vietnam is a great example of how nations with distinct histories and different political systems can work together in practical ways, advancing discreet efforts where our interests align to maintain a stable regional balance. And in South Asia, India is a critical anchor to hold the line. A powerful India, acting in its own self-interest, advances our shared goal of maintaining a balance of power across the region. India is modernizing its military to carry its share of the security burden, particularly in the Indian Ocean. It's building out the heavy industrial and logistics capacity to sustain high-end military operations, including the ability to repair and maintain our shared platforms and support US Navy vessels operating forward in the theater. We've also committed to pursuing co-production with India to advance capabilities like Javelin anti-tank guided munitions, real tangible steps to improve the collective readiness of our forces. This kind of industrial muscle isn't just a long-term goal, it's an immediate operational imperative. And the United States Department of War is leading the way. America is undergoing a historic national manufacturing mobilization of our defense industrial base. We will produce the best weaponry in the world at scale, at speed, and at a reasonable price. This is my personal commitment to all of you, and it is our president's demand. And that's why President Trump, after spending $1 trillion on defense last year, plans to make a generational investment of $1.5 trillion on defense this year to unleash America's arsenal of freedom and expand America's military dominance for decades to come, a generational investment. President Trump is setting the gold standard. We demand 3.5% from our allies and partners, and we are going well beyond that number. We expect every single ally and partner to match that kind of resolve. For those nations that rise to this challenge that embrace responsibility as true partners, the benefits will be clear. As our strategy states, we will prioritize working with model allies those nations who are most capable, clear-eyed and ready to defend their national interests. For those nations, we are moving them to the front of the line, expedited arms sales, deep industrial base collaboration, expanded intelligence sharing, the list goes on that benefits many. But for those who believe they can continue to free ride on the generosity of the American taxpayer, hear us now. Those days are over. Allies who refuse to step up and carry their own weight for our collective defense will face a clear shift in how we do business. President Trump believes in helping countries that help themselves, and the United States Department of War feels the exact same way. That is the nature of burden sharing. It's what we owe each other, and most importantly, what I owe the American people and my troops, the most precious asset we have. The world today is unforgiving, and that's why this bold path is a matter of strategic necessity. We have a responsibility to our people to shape the world that comes next, and under President Trump's leadership, that is exactly what the United States of America is doing. The U.S. War Department is advancing an America First Peace Through Strength common sense agenda. We are reviving our warrior ethos inside our ranks. We are rebuilding our great military, and we are reestablishing the deterrence that was so dangerously allowed to erode under the Biden administration. Under President Trump, we have the most powerful and capable military in the history of the world, but our approach is not one of isolation. America first does not mean America alone, but it means realist engagement with a clear eye toward defending our most vital national interest. It's an approach that values actions over words and sees alliances as true partnerships measured by the sovereign strength and capabilities brought to bear by each member. Practical interest-driven models of partnership is not a cynical compromise, but instead the most realistic and reliable foundation for enduring peace in the Pacific. Our approach asks Pacific nations to do what many are already eager to do: invest seriously in their own defense, contribute more to collective security, and work with the United States in pragmatic ways that advance our shared interests. If there was a thesis statement for my remarks this morning, it would be this: join us in embracing this vision in building a team of strong, self-reliant nations fully capable of defending their own sovereignty while contributing to our collective security in preserving the favorable balance of power that benefits all of us. Strong, quiet, clear. I've said this before, but it bears repeating again and again, those who long for peace must prepare for war. From my first platoon to the First Island Chain. Let that remain at the forefront of our minds, because we all long for peace. That time is now. The challenges we face are real, but so is the opportunity before us. We must meet that moment, and may Almighty God bless all of our troops in harm's way. Thank you very much.

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